[Reproducible-builds] Bug#818128: nethack: please make the build reproducible

[Reiner Herrmann]

Source: nethack
Version: 3.6.0-1
Severity: wishlist
Tags: patch
User: reproducible-builds at lists.alioth.debian.org
Usertags: timestamps locale cpu
X-Debbugs-Cc: reproducible-builds at lists.alioth.debian.org

Hi!

While working on the "reproducible builds" effort [1], we have noticed
that nethack could not be built reproducibly.

There are three issues that prevent building it reproducibly:
- the nhdat file is not reproducible, because the order of archive
  members varies depending on the locale. Setting LC_ALL to C expands
  the files in DATDLB always in the same way.
- makedefs uses the current date/time for the build date that gets
  embedded. By using $SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH, the date from the latest
  changelog entry is used instead.
- parallel building causes that src/objects.o and src/monst.o are build
  either from within src/ or from util/ (as those files are used by
  nethack and by makedefs), which results in a different build path
  embedded into the binary. This is solved by building makedefs
  explicitely before nethack.

Regards,
 Reiner

[1]: https://wiki.debian.org/ReproducibleBuilds
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